A month-old baby, two siblings and their mother were killed Tuesday night in Nkangbe, a suburb of Minna, Niger State capital as their house was razed by fire.
But, the second wife and her two kids were, however, rescued alive with severe burns and are now receiving treatment in the hospital.
The fire, which cause could not be ascertained as at press time, reportedly lasted for about five hours.
Though the State Fire Service reportedly responded promptly to the distress call, they could not rescue the deceased because of the fortified burglary erected to secure the windows and doors made it difficult accessing the rooms the deceased were sleeping.
An eyewitness, Ahmed, disclosed that the area had been without electricity for the past two months due to breakdown of their transformer, hence, the inferno cannot be traced to power upsurge from the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company, AEDC.
“The members of the family were already inside their rooms but as we saw smoke coming out of the house, we sent a distress call immediately to the Fire Service and they responded promptly just as some of the people around, who were yet to sleep, tried their best to rescue the women and the children but could not gain access due to the intensity of the Fire.
“However, with the arrival of men of the Fire Service, we succeeded in rescuing the second wife and her two children through the window but with severe burns,” he further explained.
One of the men of the fire service told the correspondent present that they were yet to ascertain the cause of the fire.
“When we arrived at the scene of the fire, all our efforts to penetrate the rooms were fruitless as the woman and children were already trapped but we managed to rescue another woman and her two children.
“On our record, there are four deaths and three people also injured and what hampered our rescue operation was the burglary that was very difficult to remove,” he explained.
